Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live web cam on the summit of near 13,800 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. This web cam is available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon shining down during the night at times. Plus, during the nights you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise and sunset too… depending upon weather conditions.

Aloha Paragraphs

Our trade winds will continue blowing, moderately strong

We’re involved in a normal trade wind weather pattern

An area of tropical moisture, associated with tropical
depression Genevieve, will bring showers and sultryweather by Friday, first on the Big Island and Maui
County….then for the other islands Saturday – some
rainfall may be locally generous

Small Craft Wind Advisory…windiest coasts and
channels around Maui County and the Big Island

~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~

Our trade winds will remain active, blowing in the moderately strong range for the most part…locally stronger at times.Here’s the latestweather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the North Pacific Ocean, along with a real-time wind profile of the central Pacific…focused on the Hawaiian Islands. We have moderately strong high pressure systems located far to the north and northeast of the state, with a ridge of high pressure running southwest. At the same time, we have several low pressure systems that are moving by to the south of the state…and will continue doing so for several more days. The forecast calls for the trade winds to remain active, increasing a notch at times..as these tropical disturbances migrate from east to west.Satellite imageryshows very few low level clouds anywhere in sight…with high cirrus clouds to our south and southwest.Looking at this larger looping satellite image, it shows considerable thunderstorm activity over the ocean to the southwest, south, and southeast of the state..which is sending high clouds northward over us at times. There’s hardly a lower level cloud in sight, even to the east and northeast at the time of this writing. Here’s thelooping radar, showing a few showers falling locally along the windward sides and around the mountains, which will remain rather limited for another couple of days…perhaps increasing just a little at night.

A fairly normal trade wind weather pattern will prevail through Thursday…followed by increased showers early Friday into Saturday. The models continue showing an increase in showers associated with what is now re-invigorated tropical depression Geneieve…whose center will move by well to the south of the state in a couple of days. As this area of tropical moisture gets closer, our weather will turn sultry and more shower prone Friday and Saturday. As this tropical depression moves by to the south and southwest of the state, it may trigger gusty trade winds as well. As we get into the second half of the weekend and into early next week, conditions should return to pleasant trade winds…as they are now. I’ll be back again early Wednesday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a great Tuesday night wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Tropical Depression Genevieve – Tropical cyclone Genevieve began her life as a tropical depression in the eastern Pacific Ocean. As it crossed the 140W line of longitude, separating the eastern and central Pacific, this system weakened, and became a post-tropical cyclone for several days. Once the low level circulation center, or what was left of it, came into our central Pacific…the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) began tracking it. It became what we could call a tropical disturbance, as it was carried along in the low level trade wind flow. Recently it began to organize itself again, aided by light winds aloft , and warm sea water temperatures below. The CPHC upgraded it into a tropical depression…as it restrengthened. It’s now back to being referred to as Genevieve, and will likely intensify further over the next 12 hours…becoming tropical storm Genevieve for a day or two.

The good thing is that this system isn’t likely to turn northwestward towards the Hawaiian Islands. It’s expected to migrate along in a generally west to west-northwest direction. The long and short of all this is that our islands don’t have to worry about threatening weather conditions, other than some possible heavy showers with time. The northern fringe of its associated clouds will bring an increase in showers to our area by Friday into Saturday, with improving weather as this system moves away to the southwest Sunday into early next week. Here’s the CPHC graphical track map for this system, along with a satellite image…down to the southeast of the Big Island of Hawaii. I will continue to monitor this situation, just in case something unexpected begins to take place. Thereafter, it appears that there will be more tropical activity originating to our southeast and east-southeast through the next week, if not longer…we’ll need to keep an eye out in those directions.

World-wide tropical cyclone activity:

Atlantic Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones

Showers and thunderstorms associated with an area of low pressure
located about 1150 miles east of the southern Windward Islands
remain limited. This system continues to show signs of
organization, however, and the low could develop into a tropical
depression later today or tomorrow while it moves generally
west-northwestward near 15 mph. Interests in the Lesser Antilles
should monitor the progress of this system - Here's the hurricane model output.

North Eastern Pacific: There are no active tropical cyclones 1.) An area of low pressure located about 1000 miles south-southwest of the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula continues to produce disorganized showers and thunderstorms. Environmental conditions should support the gradual development of this system during the next several days while it moves west-northwestward at 10 to 15 mph.

2.) Disorganized cloudiness and showers are associated with a broad area of low pressure located about 1500 miles southwest of the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula. Some slow development of this system is possible during the next several days while it moves westward

Here’s a wide satellite imagethat covers the entire area between Mexico, out through the central Pacific…to the International Dateline.

Central Pacific Ocean: Tropical Depression Genevieve) is active again, located about 580 miles southeast of Hilo, here’s the CPHC graphical track map…along with a satellite image

1.) A disorganized area of showers and thunderstorms is located about 810 miles south southwest of Oahu. The surrounding environment may permit this system to develop slightly during the next couple of days as it drifts slowly to the west northwest.

* Formation chance through 48 hours, low, 20 percent

2.) An area of disorganized convection was centered about 1600 miles southwest of Oahu. There is little, if any, indication that any organization is possible with this system during the next couple of days.

Interesting:Turtle Talk: Exactly how do turtles communicate? – Turtles comprise one of the oldest living groups of reptiles, with hundreds of species found throughout the world. Many have been well-researched, and scientists know very specific things about their various evolutionary histories, metabolic rates, and the ways in which their sexes are determined. But there was one very obvious thing that has been largely left unknown by science until very recently. Turtles can make sounds.

Two new studies published recently in Chelonian Conservation and Biology and Herpetologica find that two turtle species vocalize when they reproduce and during some social interactions, and that their vocalizations are many and varied.

But why exactly did researchers go so long without discovering this aspect to turtle behavior? According to Richard Vogt, a herpetologist and turtle conservationist with the Brazilian Institute for Amazon Research and Director of the Center for Amazon Turtle Conservation, dogmatic assumptions are to blame.

“Because no one studied it, because some of the literature on reptiles published back in the 1950s claimed that turtles were deaf as a stump and did not vocalize, and everyone just believed [it] without investigating it,” Vogt, who is a coauthor of both studies, told mongabay.com.

However, Vogt wasn’t very surprised when he and his colleagues discovered that turtles were making sounds. He had long suspected this to be the case, but circumstance prevented him from studying it.

“While filming courtship behavior of false map turtles (Graptemys pseudogeographica) in captivity in the mid 1970s for part of my PhD thesis at the University of Wisconsin – Madison I noticed that the males were opening and closing their mouths while they were titillating the females with their vibrating foreclaws, and not trying to bite,” Vogt said.

“At that time only the Navy had hydrophones and since the war protesters had blown up the army math research center at the UW. I did not think it a wise idea to be associated with the military, so my ideas laid fallow until 2005 when an inquisitive Australian student had access to underwater recording equipment and dropped a hydrophone in an aquarium with side necked turtles and found out they were vocalizing.”

But Vogt held on to his curiosity, and later investigated the phenomenon with one of his students while studying turtles in the Amazon River. He attributes part of the reason for the knowledge lag about turtle vocalizations to technological limitations and the fact that the noises turtles produce are low and quiet.